[11] In addition to Dylan, the song features Larry Campbell on banjo, Charlie Sexton on guitar, Augie Meyers on accordion, Tony Garnier on bass and David Kemper on drums and percussion.
[12] Andy Greene, writing in Rolling Stone, where the song placed second on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century" (behind only "Things Have Changed"), notes that, for Dylan, Charley Patton's title was "really just a jumping-off point for a mythic ramble through 20th-century Americana that touches on Robert Johnson’s 'Dust My Broom', Big Joe Turner, the Ford Mustang, and the folk ballad 'The Cuckoo'.
In Dylan's version of the song, the waters crash through the entire sweep of human history, from the biblical flood to the Civil War, the Jim Crow South, and even modern philosophy.
Charley Patton thus jostles with Charles Darwin, Big Joe Turner (the blues shouter who sang Shake, Rattle and Roll), and the English materialist philosopher George Lewes".
'High Water', a jaded reckoning with ecological, social, and/or financial collapse, shrugs at the notion of Darwinian evolution and lands on this inspiring line: 'As great as you are, man, you’ll never be greater than yourself'.
[17] Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon write in their book that "Dylan's splendid vocals make 'High Water (For Charley Patton)' one of the best pieces on the album".
[10] The Big Issue placed it at #62 on a 2021 list of the "80 best Bob Dylan songs - that aren't the greatest hits" and implied that apocalyptic lines like "“It’s bad out there, high water everywhere” seemed to chime with the September 11 attacks.